Friday, September 01, 2006

Local Politics: Once More Into the Breach

It is the first of September, and while the weather is still frighteningly warm and sunny, it is time for Grubb Street to suddenly turn boring.

I mean POLITICAL Yeah, that's what I meant to say! We're going to turn political. With autumn fast approaching, the yard signs are already mulitplying, the commercials are starting, the mailers are out and the politicos are already choking on their penny loafers as they put their collective feet in their mouths. Ah, the smell of politics in the morning!

Part of the reason for the early start is that we have an early primary this year, scheduled to allow more time to sort out the results of the primary before getting to the general election. Now in many cases, the party's choice has already been selected. These individuals will be noted here as the "annointed" candidates. There are a couple reasons for annointment, as they are either the incumbent or the poor shlub that has been pushed into the path of the incumbent by well-wishing supporters, or, very rarely, individuals who have gracefully navigated the early going sufficiently well that they sudden appear, like Athena sprung from the head of Zeus, as the main contender. For them the primary is just an opening gun for the long run ahead.

But this primary is also very important from our "non-partisan" posts like State Supreme Court. Should a candidate gain over 50% of the vote in the primary, they don't have to run in the general. They get the position. That simple. This is why so many of the signs you see are for Supreme Court Candidates right now - they have a chance to grab the prize in a low-turnout, early election. And while these are usually down-ticket, low-attention positions, they have been seeing a LOT of money come their way. But we'll get to that in the days to come, as we tick down to the 16 September primary.

A final reason for squaring the decks away early is that we are sailing to a perfect storm of an election. No, we are not choosing a president or governor this time, but it feels like we're choosing everyone else. Here in the Panther Lake area where Grubbstreet is located, have up for grabs the positions of US Senator, US Rep, two state reps, our state senator, and three state supreme court positions. And that's not counting the various initiatives that may/may not be on the ballot. That's a lot of ground to cover. And so, armed with my voter's guide, mailers and snarky commentary, the season has begun.